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Autonomy, Electric Vehicles and the Sharing Economy

In our most recent blog, we tackled the topic of 5G and discussed how enhanced connectivity will be a revolutionary change for mobile businesses. And in the coming years, 5G technology will become essential to the advancement of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) connectivity. The next piece of the connectivity puzzle will be the global rise of autonomous vehicles, which are predicted to produce an estimated 30 TB of data daily. This new generation of vehicles will rely heavily on the new networks, using processing power to determine where and how fast to drive.1

In fact, both autonomous and electric vehicles are expected to enter a period of significant growth. New data suggests that by 2025, one in six cars sold globally will be electric (and every one in three in Europe). This positive trend expected in EV sales is particularly high in the fleet segment, where companies must comply with CO2 targets.2 Furthermore, it’s forecasted that autonomous car registrations will grow from 0.2 million units in 2020 to 24 million units in 2030 — that’s a compound annual rate of 62 percent.3

How autonomous and EV sharing will affect SMBs

Today’s emerging share-centric landscape is poised to alter vehicle ownership economics forever. It will enable more consumers to go without owning a vehicle and allowing those who do to generate revenue from it. In the coming years, we should expect a democratization of revenue as technology enables more and more individual owners to participate in the vehicle market, and businesses of all sizes could see operational changes as a result.

And as electric and autonomous vehicles become more prevalent and vehicle sharing expands to help solve on-demand needs, mobile resource management (MRM) platforms will grow in importance as companies seek greater insight into their demand and resource requirements.

Utilizing a mobile resource platform will provide businesses with the information access they need to determine the miles vehicles travel in total and between stops. This can allow for a determination of optimal charging points for electric vehicles. Businesses can then invest in installing charging points and determine which routes do or do not make sense for electric charging.

New benefits abound with automation

Some reports estimate that there will be more than 11 million shared driverless vehicles operating on the roads globally by 2030, serving an average of 64 users per shared driverless vehicle.4 As vehicles take on increasing levels of automation, from Level 1 (driver assistance, widely available today) to Level 5 (full automation, still well on the horizon), enhanced safety, productivity and efficiency will result. Even without a vehicle being fully autonomous, significant value can be achieved with automation, including major fuel economy improvements and cost savings.

The right technology can help drivers improve their routes so that they drive fewer miles and service more customers in a given shift, helping to improve both customer satisfaction and the bottom line. Additionally, the data gleaned from the platform can help to identify opportunities to improve driver behavior, anticipate breakdowns and manage maintenance schedules to improve vehicle uptime. The software also tracks drivers’ Hours of Service (HOS) compliance electronically, enabling them to collect payment at the point a load is delivered or service is provided.

Fast-forward to full automation

When autonomous vehicles eventually do reach the level of full automation, an MRM platform will remain a key part of business operations. Every day, an autonomous vehicle still needs to know the answers to the following questions:

What crews?

What work?

What equipment?

What truck?

Where do they go?

Did they get there?

How did it happen?

What do you do tomorrow?

Today’s technologies, such as mobile resource and fleet management platforms, are the building blocks for future benefits for autonomous vehicles. The more that small businesses do to push forward in the automated world, the more they can take advantage of changes and understand the way their vehicles are driven. To learn more about the future of autonomous and electric vehicles and the sharing economy, download our latest eBook here.

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